It is well known that, whenever possible, skis should be maintained in an upright attitude at times when the skis are not being held, used or transported. Horizontally disposed or nearly horizontally disposed skis are often subject to damage as a result of being stepped on or run over and present a serious pedestrian hazard when so disposed. However, vertically disposed skis are notoriously unstable and easily imbalanced when brushed against by a person or hit by a gust of wind. Simply leaning a ski against a vertical wall or a side of an automobile may result in damage to the ski if it should become imbalanced and fall. As another consequence of a falling ski, the sharpness of ski edges may cause damage to the wall or side of the automobile as the ski falls to the ground.
In the past, U.S. Pat. No. 3,746,177 (Vilotti) disclosed a portable magnetic rack for suporting guns, fishing rods and the like propped against a metallic surface. Therein, Vilotti discloses a rack having an elongated body of resilient material which conforms to a metal car body. The elongated body of Vilotti is either impregnated with magnetic particles throughout or comprises a magnetic backing strip which flexibly conforms to a metal surface to firmly secure the rack to a car or other magnetically reactive surface. The body is made of rubber and is thick and bulky being the same thickness as the magnetic backing strip is wide.
The elongated body of Vilotti has a plurality of vertical slots to provide leaning support for guns, fishing rods and the like. As seen in FIG. 1, the slots of Vilotti are generally sized to conform to the diameter of an inserted article. Each of the plurality of slots in the elongated body is clearly seen to support only a single item. The slots are relatively shallow in inward depth, extending inward from an outward facing surface only approximately two-thirds the depth of the elongated body.
Different than guns and fishing rods, skis are normally handled in pairs and require stabilizing support well outward from the supporting surface. Extending the length of the slots of Vilotti by increasing the depth of the elongated body for use as a ski holder would undesirably increase the bulk of the elongated body and produce a heavy and undesirably burdening item to be carried on a person participating in a skiing related activity.
A useful ski prop should be constantly available to a skier as props for skis are needed nearly every time the skis are taken off. For this reason, the prop should be compact, weigh little enough to be comfortably portable on a person in skiing attire to be available whenever needed.
In addition, as ski support surfaces below a selected support site are unpredictable due to terrain and ground cover conditions, it is highly desirable to be able rotate orientation of the skis to take advantage of a differing bite of bottoms of skis relative to ground support conditions. When skis are removed for rest, dining and other off-ski purposes, it is often desirable to have a prop which is attachable to a plurality of surfaces as a metal prop supporting surface is not always available.